belle
belle

Even if you think your pronouns are obvious, making them explicit makes it more normal for others to do the same. For those whose pronouns aren’t obvious, this is really important. #useyourprivilege

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furstenberg
furstenberg

@belle I hadn’t really considered that. Great point.

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belle
belle

@furstenberg Thanks! I hadn't thought of it either until recently so I try to share why it's important when I can.

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In reply to
smokey
smokey

@belle I was messing with my About earlier and suddenly wondered, is there a reason that everyone is only giving subjective and objective case pronouns, but not also including posessive? (I copied you and @macgenie when I added mine, but everyone else also seems to only do S/O.) If there are two, you can infer the third? Or are there cases where a person may use an objective pronoun that does’t match the subjective one typically paired with it? Or? This is the first community I’ve been part of that has people specifying pronouns, so I’m just curious.

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belle
belle

@smokey Hmm I can't speak for anyone else, & don't know heaps about it because I'm privileged to be cisgender & present in a way that my preferred pronouns are assumed correctly by most. But I tend to use this site for reference: pronoun.is

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belle
belle

@smokey They mostly use just one or two there, but a full set of examples if you click through. E.g.: she And here's the template of their examples

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belle
belle

@smokey So I don't know the answer, but I guess maybe most people use a set that matches so you can infer the rest from one or two? But I don't know! Interesting question :)

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smokey
smokey

@belle Thanks for the replies :-) That site is really interesting and useful; I wasn’t aware there were so many pronoun sets in use by people.

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belle
belle

@smokey Yeah, so many! You can see why it helps to make it more accepted to ask for someone's pronouns or share yours with all those variations.

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smokey
smokey

@belle Absolutely.

I was also thinking that it has been a while—and lots of new Micro.blog members—since your and @macgenie's previous posts about pronouns, so maybe several of us could "repost" it over the next 24 hours in advance of Micro Monday. It seems like the vast majority of bios I view do not have them.

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jean
jean

@smokey @belle I would like to encourage everyone on Micro.blog to include their pronouns in their bio.

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belle
belle

@macgenie @smokey Good idea!

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desparoz
desparoz

@macgenie @smokey @belle Thanks for the reminder. Done.

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amit
amit

@belle wow, I am in awe of the community in here, so much to learn. I had never thought how including pronoun set can make it better for others. And had no clue of so many pronoun sets. @macgenie

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smokey
smokey

@belle @macgenie I’m going to continue to try and remember to make a reminder post before the first Micro Monday of the month every month or so, especially as we keep having new people join Micro.blog :-)

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Ron
Ron

@smokey @belle @macgenie What about location? I really appreciate a bio that helps me identify where the person lives in this big world. Have we become so freaked out about being spied upon by big technology, that location seems to be a deeply private matter, to be revealed only to the very closest of our friends? Sometimes I spend a lot of time trying to find some clue about where someone is from, often because they have posted an interesting picture, but I can't place where it might be from.

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mdhughes
mdhughes

@Ron I’m generally not a fan of giving out drone-precise targeting coords, but +/-1000km is OK.

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mdhughes
mdhughes

@matigo I wonder if it's safe to say "within the Earth/Lunar region" and hope nobody can throw a dinosaur-killer at us.

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smokey
smokey

@Ron To me, they’re two different things (I’m having trouble articulating my point on this; I keep writing and deleting), although I see your point that they both provide useful additional information or context about a Micro.blog human.

As I understand it, everyone listing prononuns makes it less strange/uncomfortable to do so for someone who needs to specify pronouns as part of one’s identity. Location, on the other hand, can easily make one more uncomfortable (surveillance/privacy, etc.) and it’s not tied to essential identity in the same way as pronouns are.

I’m also naturally curious about people’s locations, but I’m someone who rarely shares mine (in fact, in a lot of public or semi-public places on the Internet, I still use some sort of pseudonym—since Micro.blog is tied to my website, which has clearly specified me for more than two decades, it really wouldn’t have made any difference here, and I’d always wanted to be just “smokey” somewhere), I also don’t mind the absence of location. Sometimes you can even infer location from someone’s posts and comments, which then is a fun “a-ha!” moment :-)

I do think as part of establishing the norms of this community, it might be good to have a brief “best practices” document for bios (and probably other things, too), so a person can make a conscious decision about it—but then again, I’m a documentation guy; professional hazard ;-) @macgenie

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Miraz
Miraz

@Ron I’d enjoy knowing larger locations — I'm on the alert for other New Zealanders, for example. But telling the world where you are with too much precision makes you more vulnerable to things like house breakins (so and so lives at xyz and goes to the market every Monday). More than that, women, and other vulnerable groups, are likely to be even more hesitant to share too much personal info.

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JohnPhilpin
JohnPhilpin

@mdhughes so this won’t work for you then

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mdhughes
mdhughes

@JohnPhilpin w3w.co/itself.st...

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vanessa
vanessa

@mdhughes Really spooky - I saw this mentioned on a tv show today. I'd never heard of it, now twice in the same day! @JohnPhilpin

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Ron
Ron

@Miraz Of course, I wouldn't be giving out any street addresses! But I like knowing that you're in NZ and I don't mind you knowing that I'm in the US Midwest. I guess I could think up some way in which there might be some risk about that, but I don't really want to.

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Ron
Ron

@smokey For me, location provides a lot more interesting info than pronouns. I love the folks who post interesting pictures in their travels & state exactly where it is, so I can think about going there myself. I think telling a bunch of bloggers what the best practices are for their bios will be about as effective as herding cats. They're bloggers in part because they like to write whatever they choose to write and thank you very much. ;-)

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Ron
Ron

@adiabatic I have one brother and he doesn't even use FB or Twitter. He's in ICU right now, from open heart surgery today.

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Ron
Ron

@mdhughes Of course, you can do whatever you like. I was just sayin' that I appreciate a bio that gives some hint about where they might be, and that's the truth. I saw one guy who posted here about being somewhere in Poland & another guy replied that he was in a nearby town, so they were making arrangements to meet face to face!

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JohnPhilpin
JohnPhilpin

@mdhughes 😎 @Vanessa it is an awesome service

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herself
herself

@belle appreciate where you are coming from here and I love how inclusive this community is. But any time someone tells me I have to do something I start to wonder if I really want to be a member of that club after all. It's the contrarian in me, I'm afraid. I'm also of (I'm guessing) a very small minority who isn't bothered in the slightest if someone gets my pronoun wrong. I guess I'm more interested in a fluid spectrum than the need to rigidly definite oneself. Again, probably in the minority here and in no way wanting to detract with what you're trying to do. Just trying to explain why I won't be changing my bio. Not to provoke. I just wish we didn't have to label everything and everyone, all the time.

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